Wilbert and the Flying Sofa
by Anakerie
Summary: One-shot sequel to "Bonded". When Jade's sofa goes feral, he has a pretty good idea where to place the blame. Jade/Dist


I do not own tales of the Abyss or any characters that appear in this story, with the exception of Wilbert. Don't sue: it's not worth your time.

This is just a silly, one-shot follow-up to "Bonded". It takes place about six months later. Saphir is trying hard to behave himself, but lack of sleep, a potty-mouth robot, and a chance to impress his young apprentice with flying furniture are a dangerous combination. No real redeeming value here: I believe my muse may have been abusing my allergy meds again.

**Wilbert and the Flying Sofa**

Falling in love, Jade had decided, was the easy part. Real love was digging within yourself and finding the patience to share a bed with someone who habitually talked in their sleep and stole the blankets in order to build a cocoon around themselves. It was, at times, like trying to doze off next to a rather chatty caterpillar.

It was his own chattering teeth that awoke him this time, and it took a moment for his groggy mind to realize why: once again his blankets had migrated to the other side of the bed. Saphir had completely encased himself; not even his head emerged.

Annoyed, Jade poked at the bundle. "Excuse me, but when your metamorphosis is complete could I please get some of the covers back?"

The bundle did, just to be obstinate for once, not answer.

Trying not to growl, Jade grabbed the edge of the blanket and tugged. Then tugged harder. To his surprise, the blankets suddenly unrolled like a carpet, and there was a loud "Thunk" from the floor next to the bed. Followed, not unexpectedly, by a shriek of rage.

"What in the HELL was that for?"

Jade winced as Saphir popped up like a jack-in-the-box from beside the bed. "I was trying to reclaim a little of the bedclothes for myself. Are you alright?"

"Of course I'm not alright. I'll be one giant bruise in the morning. You could have simply awoken me and asked!"

"I tried that." Jade explained as his furious companion climbed back into bed and snatched up the blankets again. "You were dead to the world."

Saphir huffed and turned his back to Jade. After about five minutes, his lover spoke again.

"Now this isn't going to work. I can't possibly go back to sleep until you accept my apology."

"What apology? You haven't apologized!"

"I haven't? Well…" He slid across the bed, and flipped the top of the blankets over both of their heads. "I guess I should get started then."

****************************************

After it was all said and done, Saphir would have been perfectly happy to place the blame for the next day's mess squarely at Guy's feet. It was, after all, Guy who had wanted a demonstration, and Guy who had actively assisted him in the experiment.

It was also Jade's fault, if one was to be fair about it, because if Saphir hadn't been so exhausted after being kept awake nearly all night by a certain someone he never would have gone along with it. Well, probably wouldn't have gone along with it. He would have at least given it a second thought. And it was Jade's sofa, not his.

Of course, Anise wasn't without guilt either. She was there, after all. Worse, she was female. She was supposed to, by design, stop men from doing foolish things. A total disgrace to her gender, that one.

In the end though, everyone of course blamed him entirely. He could see the logic behind that, even if he didn't agree with it. It wasn't as if he'd done it on purpose…

_**One day earlier…**_

Saphir glanced down at the tangle of wires and parts in front of him, trying to look intelligent and wise in front of the ever-watchful Guy, but in reality he was trying hard not to spoil the image by yawning widely enough for the boy to fall in. Anise was busy playing with a small robot, Wilbert, teaching it to swear.

"Rough night?" Guy asked in sympathy, leaning closer to observe what Saphir was doing.

Saphir wasn't going to dignify that with an answer, and he didn't think Guy really wanted a detailed description of exactly why he was having trouble staying awake. He wasn't, after all, Anise. (Who had already been nervy enough to ask).

"Hey, Saphir…" Guy paused. "There's something I always wanted to ask you about."

"Humm?" _If it has to do with my personal life I__'__m throwing you both out of here. When I was growing up children had better manners. They were…childlike._

"What ever happened to your chair?"

Saphir glowered. "Locked away somewhere in military headquarters, probably, if they didn't turn it into kindling. Jade refuses to return it to me. I liked that chair. It was extremely comfortable."

"I never understood how you made it fly. I never saw any engines or anything like that. What did you use?"

"Oh, it wasn't hard at all. Here." He fished around in a pile of spare parts and pulled out two magnets as behind them the robot let out another colorful string of expletives. "Anise, did I mention that was intended to be a present for Michael?"

The girl giggled. "Boy, is Nephry going to be surprised, then."

"If that falls into her child's hands I'll be lucky to ever be allowed near him again. That's assuming Jade doesn't throttle me first." He thrust the magnets up at Guy. "Look. Put them this way and they attract. Put them the other way, they repel. Basic physics. What I did was build a magnet of sorts that works against gravity. It repels it, which caused the chair to float. It's controlled in the way that Anise's doll works, by the fonon frequency of the user."

"Wow. Could you do that on things like planes?" Guy was so excited he chose to ignore Wilbert's observations on the legitimacy of his parents' marriage.

"At this time no. The size of the device makes it impractical for extremely heavy objects. If I tried it with a plane it would end up being bigger than the craft itself. But it works well enough for small things, like the chair. Perhaps with a little more time and research I could find a way to make it work on a much larger scale." He pointed at the corner to what Guy had assumed was a pile of junk. "That's a larger one I've been experimenting with. It should work; it's just a matter of finding something to attach it to."

"How big are we talking here?" Anise wandered over to examine the device.

"Bigger than the chair, but not much bigger. I'm not certain entirely. Perhaps the size of a sofa."

The three of them looked at each other. "You mean, about the size of that really ugly piece of junk in the living room?" Anise asked.

"Yes, about that size." Saphir always frowned when he thought about the sofa. It was truly one of the ugliest things he'd ever seen in his life. If they'd left it white, he could have accepted it, but some tasteless fool had embroidered small brown flowers all over the damn thing. Only Jade, he had decided months ago, would own a sofa covered in what appeared to be dead daffodils.

"When is Jade expected back?" Guy wanted to know, suddenly look as young as Anise.

"Not until later this evening." Saphir paused, noticing the way both of them were staring at him. "I suppose, with help, I might be able to do a basic test and put everything to rights again before he gets home."

Between the three of them, they carried the device upstairs, through the living room, and out into the front yard. Afterward, looking back to make sure Jade hadn't snuck home early, they went after the sofa. Well, Guy did most of the carrying on that end, sweating and grunting as he tugged the thing out of the front door and into the grass.

"Stop drooling." Saphir hissed at Anise, who was watching Guy's muscles bulge and not even trying to hide her appreciation.

"You first!" She hissed back. In her arms, Wilbert took advantage of the situation and advised Saphir to do something physically impossible. "Oh, same to you!" He snapped back at it. Perhaps Michael would like a stuffed bear instead. One that didn't talk.

Once everything was in place, Saphir quickly was able to rig up the magnetic device to the bottom of the sofa. "Alright. That should do it."

"Awesome." Anise and Wilbert climbed on board. She sat the robot down on the next cushion. "What do I do?"

"Same as the doll. Just mentally give it a command."

And it was just as the sofa began to obediently rise into the air that Saphir realized his mistake. He was still sure later that if he'd had enough sleep he would have realized it sooner, but what was done was done. He had never expected again to make furniture float. He had designed the 2nd device to handle something much heavier, and although big the sofa wasn't really all that heavy. He'd factored in the size correctly, but not the weight.

The sofa shot up like a cork and began to spin madly around. From above, Anise screamed and jumped off, plummeting back toward the ground. Guy made a mad dash and caught her in his arms.

"What did you do?" Of course she blamed Saphir. "What did you do to it? It's gone nuts!"

"The device is too strong! Why did you jump off?" He wasn't about to let her pin it all on him. "You could have landed it! Probably!"

"Excuse me for not wanting to die!" She glanced over at Guy, who was still staring in awe at the spinning sofa. "Thank you, Guy. You don't know how glad I am you got over that phobia."

From above their heads, over the wind the sofa was whipping up, they could hear a loud litany of obscenities.

"Oh no, Wilbert! Wilbert, jump!" Anise yelled upward.

With a lurch, the sofa stopped spinning, and then took off into the distance like a spooked horse. Before it disappeared over the horizon they could hear, faintly, Wilbert expressing his opinion of Guy's relationship with rappigs.

"After it! Guy, come on. We have to save Wilbert!"

"Forget Wilbert!" Saphir was furious. "If Jade sees his sofa go flying by I'm a dead man! I demand you find it! Wilbert has an artificial fonic frequency: the device is picking up on that and there's no telling what it could do!"

"Don't yell at us! It's your stupid invention!" Anise shouted back. "My robot better be okay!"

"Your robot? Just because you taught him enough profanity to make a pirate blush does not make him your robot!"

"Enough, both of you!" Guy cut in. "We have to get it back before it lands on anyone!"

With a glare at Saphir, Anise took off after Guy. "Don't worry, Wilbert. We'll save you!" She called out, running in the direction the sofa had headed.

Saphir watched them leave, feeling oddly detached. Right then, Jade was going to murder him. Either murder him or send him back to prison. He would prefer the murder at this point. Well, nothing he could really do about it.

He walked back into the house, the empty spot that had contained the now-rogue sofa seeming to glare at him.

Might as well go back downstairs and do some work, he reasoned. It would probably be a long time before he was allowed to touch an experiment again.

**************************************

Wilbert was a friend.

He'd been designed to be a friend. Master Saphir had told him over and over that he was going to be the friend of a boy named Michael. "Soon, you won't live here any more. You'll go live with Michael and his parents, and you'll have a very important job. Michael is going to be a genius; you'll assist him in that as he gets older, but for now your job is to teach him how to talk and to be his friend." Master Saphir was worried that because Michael was going to be so smart that he might not have a lot of friends, and he wanted to make sure the boy had at least one true companion he could always count on.

If Wilbert was going to be the friend of the special Michael, the little robot reasoned, then it was important that he learn how to be a good friend. Mistress Anise had been teaching him. Every time he repeated one of the special words she laughed and clapped, and Wilbert decided that he was getting very good at being friendly.

He wasn't sure at first why Master Saphir and Mistress Anise had sent him away on the flying sofa, and then realized it must be for practice. Master Saphir wanted him to be perfect before he sent him off to Michael.

He found that he could control the sofa a little bit; not like Master Saphir could have, but enough to get it to go generally in the direction he wanted it to go. This was obviously part of his training as well and he was determined not to let his Master down.

The first new friends he spotted were a young, pretty woman, and a little girl. He lowered the sofa in front of them, and they stared at him, no doubt in awe of his flawless design.

Which phrase was appropriate to greet these people with? He pondered for a moment, and then selected a very nice one from his memory banks.

The woman screamed, snatched up the child, and ran off into the distance. Oh, tag! Master Saphir had told him all about tag!

Wilbert and his sofa raced along after them.

**************************

Later, Jade blamed himself for tempting fate by daring to think that so far the day had been boring.

He'd been in his office all morning, going over status reports for the more distant areas of Malkuth, which was pointless because it wasn't as if Kimlasca was going to suddenly launch an attack. At worst the soldiers were dealing with monsters and bandits, neither of which was too difficult for them to handle. They mostly sat around playing cards and getting paid for it, and in Jade's mind that was much better than the alternative.

The Colonel was also trying his best not to fall asleep at his desk, something that seemed to greatly amuse his emperor. At least, it had to until Jade had offered to provide his old friend with details. It was so much fun at times watching him squirm.

Peony was on the floor of the office now, playing with the rapidly growing Perry. Jade wondered sometimes if Saphir had experimented behind his back by adding genetic material from a dog into the pig's make-up. Perry had all four of his hooves braced, and was mock-growling as he tugged on a sock. Peony, who held the other end in his teeth, was pulling and growling back. They were a matched set, those two. Jade lived now with the secret fear that Peony was going to declare the animal his heir any day now.

A frantic pounding on the office door startled Peony into releasing the sock, and the rappig gave a squeal of victory as he began worrying it.

"Colonel Curtiss!" The young soldier saluted. "We have a…Emperor! Sir! I didn't see you there, Sir!" He began to bow deeply.

"Oh, knock it off! What's going on?" Peony got to his feet as Perry began marching the sock around Jade's office.

"A disturbance, Sir! We seem to be under attack!"

Instantly Jade's boredom vanished. "An attack? By whom?"

"Unknown, Colonel. They seem to be using…err…furniture."

"Furniture?" Jade asked, baffled.

"A sofa, sir. It's flying around the city attacking people. So far no injuries. Lots of damage, sir."

"Lieutenant Nixsin, are you drunk again?"

"No, Sir. Not this time, Sir. It's a flying sofa. Sir, the robot…"

"What robot?"

"It's being controlled by an evil robot, Sir." The young soldier blushed. "Sir, it said some terrible things about my late mother. Just terrible. Then it yelled 'You're it!' and made the sofa attack me. It took off toward the harbor."

Jade began to get a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Lieutenant, can you describe the sofa?"

"Very ugly, Sir. It seemed to have these brown flowers on it. I didn't get a good look… the robot distracted me. My mother was good woman, Sir. She didn't do any of those things it was saying."

The virtue of the soldier's mother was the last thing Jade was concerned about at the moment. He took off out of the office with Peony only a half-step behind,

The city was in chaos. People were running in every direction, shouting to each other to take cover; Kimlasca had declared war and apparently meant business this time. Jade didn't even bother trying to calm them down as he hurried by: if they were stupid enough to believe that Kimlasca would attack with furniture they deserved to panic a little.

The two of them threaded through the crowd in the direction of the loudest screams. Here the destruction was visible. Windows on the hotel were smashed out, the street covered in broken glass. Some street lamps lay on their sides. Someone opened the door of the tavern, squeaked when they saw both Colonel Curtiss and Emperor Peony go stalking by, and slammed the door back shut.

A group of young boys stood on the pier, laughing and pointing. "Wow, I gotta have that robot! Maybe it'll come back this way! This is the best day ever! Maybe they'll attack us with beds next!" The oldest of the boys was beside himself in glee.

About to question them on which way their afternoon entertainment had flown, Jade noticed a familiar blond head in the distance. A head that immediately ducked down at the sight of him and tried to run behind the hotel. A smaller figure tried to hide in the large one's shadow.

"Don't move!" Jade ordered loudly, and everyone around him froze; Colonel Curtiss was at the moment far more terrifying than a sofa-driving mad robot. He stalked up to Guy and Anise, who tried to smile at him, and failed miserably.

"What did he do and why did you let him?" Jade pinned them both with a glare cold enough to freeze miasma.

"Long story, it's my fault." Guy offered quickly. "I'll explain later. Which way did it go?"

"What did you just call me?" A woman screamed in the distance. "Look out, Sylvia! It's coming back at us!"

"That way." Anise pointed, and they headed off in the direction of the noise as Guy tried to explain to Jade what had transpired. Peony eventually had to stop for breath: he was laughing too hard to keep up with them.

"Jade…I'm sorry… flying sofa….robot…" The Emperor gasped. "Lieutenant Nixsin's mother…"

"There it is!" Anise pointed upward, as the sofa swooped down at them. "Wilbert! Wilbert, are you alright?"

The robot spotted Jade and waved a metal hand, recognizing him from the basement lab. It then flipped him the bird. This set Peony off again, and Guy had to move to keep his emperor from falling over onto the cobblestones.

The sofa dipped low again and Anise lunged at it, just managing to grab Wilbert's hand and pulling him off of the cushion before it took off again, this time above the city boundary and out above the water. The sofa, now devoid of even the fake frequency of the little robot, shook itself like a wet dog, spun around, and then sank into the water. They watched in awe as it tilted to one side, the right end standing proudly upright for a moment before it finally disappeared.

"Wow." Anise couldn't think of anything to say. Wilbert had no such issues, but no one paid him any attention, and he finally reverted to muttering insults to himself.

"If you'll excuse me." Jade finally spoke up. "I need to go kill someone."

"Jade." Peony finally managed to compose himself. "We need to go get everyone settled down. They think we're at war." He gave his friend a worried look: Jade appeared to be completely calm, but they'd known each other too long for the emperor to be fooled. Right now allowing Jade to go home and confront Saphir was the worst thing that could happen for either one of them.

"Right." Jade seemed to shake himself. "You two!" He pointed at where Anise and Guy were trying to sneak off again. "Since this mess is your doing as well you can assist us."

It took several hours to calm down the panic, and to assure everyone that Kimlasca was not about to send wardrobes after them next; that it was simply an experiment gone wrong. Jade would personally pay for any of the property damage caused, and assured the worried citizens that nothing like this would ever happen again. They were too afraid of him to argue.

"Jade, go easy on him." Peony finally got a moment alone with his friend just as the sun was setting. "From what Anise and Guy said he really didn't mean for any of this to happen. They were just fooling around."

"With all due respect, Your Majesty, when it's your sofa that goes on a mad rampage around the city, piloted by an obscenity-spewing automaton, then you can deal with the situation in any way you like. I'm his Bond Master, and I'll handle his punishment." He paused, and then asked quietly "I am still his Bond Master, aren't I?"

"Of course you are. Don't worry, I'm not going to take him away from you over a stupid accident. Have him come to court tomorrow morning and formally apologize and that'll be enough. Given the way he feels about me, making him beg for my forgiveness should be more than enough."

Jade said nothing.

*****************************

The house was quiet when Jade finally made his way back home, brooding over what needed to be done.

This had become, usually, his favorite part of the day. That surprised him; he'd never had any desire for domesticity in his life. He'd never expected to become attached to the simple pleasure that going home to someone provided. He'd tried his best to understand the feeling, and then had finally just given up and accepted it. Some things there just weren't logical explanations for, as much as that chafed at his scientist spirit. He was enjoying his life, and the little house and its other occupant were the primary reasons for that.

The living room looked large and empty with the sofa missing, and the wooden floor had four scuff marks were the feet had sat for years. Honestly, the room looked better without it, but that was beside the point.

He opened the door to the lab and walked down the creaking stairs, not sure at this point exactly what he was going say. Well, he supposed it would come to him.

Saphir was bent over his work desk, chewing on his lower lip. He did not look up, even though he had to have heard Jade enter the lab.

"Upstairs." Jade spoke only the one word, but something in his tone made Saphir scramble to his feet and practically run back up into the interior of the house. He watched without surprise as Jade locked the door of the lab behind them.

They stared at each other for a long moment.

Saphir finally broke the silence. "I take it this is about your sofa?"

"Do you have any idea the amount of chaos you caused today? How much panic? People thought we were under attack. If even one person had been injured, you'd be back in prison right now. You do realize Peony can do that, do you not? He can send you back any time, and there wouldn't be a thing I could do to prevent it."

He took a breath. "We had an agreement, you and I. You told me that you could accept the terms of your bond. You've seemed to be content here."

"I am. Jade, I…"

"You don't have permission to speak." His tone had the force of a slap. "You stupid little fool! Do you know how close you came to destroying everything today?"

He forced himself to stop and take a deep breath. "You're barred from the lab until I decide otherwise. Since Guy and Anise obviously can't be trusted to prevent you from doing these kind of things, they can find other ways to amuse themselves rather than coming here. Officially, you're getting off with a formal apology to Peony tomorrow morning, which you will render and during which you will grovel sufficiently. I've nothing more to say to you at the moment: I highly suggest stay out of my way for the rest of the evening."

He could see the rage flashing in Saphir's eyes, and the hurt, and knew the other man was struggling to control his own temper at the moment. Wisely, he found that control and managed to grit out "I understand."

Without another word Jade left him there, disappearing into the library and slamming the door behind him.

*********************************

_I overreacted. But how can you overreact to something like this? He has to know how fragile all of this is. Doesn't he understand how easily it can all come crashing down on us? Doesn't he care? No, of course he cares. He was just having fun, probably showing off for the other two. _

Getting up from his seat in the library, Jade rubbed his eyes and left to find his wayward servant. A quick search showed that Saphir wasn't in the bedroom, living room, or kitchen. The lab door was still securely locked, and the other man wasn't outside either.

Finally Jade eased open the door to the now unused spare bedroom. In the middle of the bed, facing the wall, was a shapeless bundle.

"What are you doing?" He asked softly.

"I'm pretending to be asleep." Came the reply.

"Right. Well, when you get bored with that come to bed." Jade left the door open and went back to his own room, crawling under the blankets with a sigh of exhaustion. If he were to survive more days like this, he really had to start getting more sleep. He was an old man, after all.

Several minutes later, Saphir appeared in the doorway, and then stopped. He eyed Jade and the bed nervously, but did not come forward.

"Idiot." Jade pulled up the edge of the blanket and raised an eyebrow at his companion. Saphir made a noise that was halfway between a laugh and a sob, and a moment later was under the covers and in Jade's arms.

"I'm sorry." He spoke against his lover's chest. "I'm sorry I let you down."

"I'm flattered, but I'd much rather you be sorry about the panicked populous and broken windows."

"Was it really that bad?"

"Oh yes, that bad. Not to mention that thanks to your robot friend, the children of Grand Chokmah have a much bigger vocabulary this evening."

"It was Anise who taught him to swear. I was going to give him Michael to assist him in learning to speak. I taught him simple words. Where is he now?"

"Anise still has him. She asked if she could keep him, and well, I didn't trust myself to allow him back in the house. Do you want him back?"

"No, no, he's corrupted beyond redemption at this point." He paused. "So you don't hate me?"

"I love you, you little fool. That's why I was so angry with you. My biggest fear, besides finding out that any day we'll have to accept Perry as the Royal Heir, is Peony revoking your bond and sending you back to prison. He warned me before you even arrived here that he would do that if he ever felt I'd lost control of the situation. I'm not naïve enough to think he'd put our friendship above the safety of Malkuth. Fortunately for both of us, he seems to have found this entire mess extremely funny. Mind you, he still expects that apology to be sincere."

Jade pulled Saphir closer, pressed his forehead against the other man's. "Afterward, you can go with me to the craftsman's house and help me pick out a new sofa. One not so… homely."

"We should probably get some sleep then. It was all your fault, you know. If you hadn't kept me awake last night I wouldn't have done it. My judgment was impaired."

"Oh? I was planning on you losing a bit of sleep tonight as well, but if you object that strenuously…"

His words were swallowed by the mouth suddenly tight against his own.

**************************

Anise yawned, and thought longingly of her awaiting bed at the inn. The streets of Grand Chokmah were completely dark and mostly empty, and no one paid any attention to the young girl peeking behind buildings and into trash cans.

"Wilbert." She hissed. "You can't have gotten far. I only turned my back for a minute. Wilbert, answer me. Where are you?"

In the distance, the lights of a Baticul-bound ferry could barely be seen. On the back of the boat, nestled in between a pile of crafts, Wilbert rested and recharged his circuits.

Sleep was important, after all. He had a busy day ahead of him tomorrow. He had all kinds of new friends to make.


End file.
